Our Storied Health Film and Media Series
Fall 2023 — Fall 2024
Upcoming: "Power of the Dream" on Oct. 23
FILM | PANEL
A year-long integrated media experience that illuminates the importance of our collective health and what can be done to enhance it.
Our Storied Health Film and Media Series
Fall 2023 — Fall 2024
Upcoming: "Power of the Dream" on Oct. 23
FILM | PANEL
A year-long integrated media experience that illuminates the importance of our collective health and what can be done to enhance it.
An IGNITE Series Campus Project
Upcoming Event
Power of the Dream
October 23, 2024
Reception at 5:00pm | Film Screening at 5:45pm
Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Martinos Auditorium
Power of the Dream is a new documentary film about the empowering and unlikely true story of how a group of professional women's basketball players took on a WNBA team owner and rallied behind now-Senator Raphael Warnock, forever changing the landscape of their sport and the course of U.S. politics.
There will be a reception at 5:00pm and a 5:45pm screening, which will be followed by a panel and community discussion. The panel will feature Dr. Lucia Hulsether, and others to be announced.
About the Panelists
Dr. Lucia Hulsether
Dr. Lucia Hulsether is a 2024-25 Senior Fellow in Race and Ethnicity at Brown and an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Skidmore College. Her core areas of research and teaching include capitalism and labor, histories of social movements, feminist theory, popular culture and media, and other topics in contemporary cultural critique. Her first book, Capitalist Humanitarianism (Duke UP, 2023), won the 2024 First Book Prize from the Cultural Studies Association. She is currently working on two projects: one on the gendered history of youth civic engagement programs and another on the cultures of competitive college debate. Raised in east Tennessee as an avid Lady Vols fan, Lucia still counts women's basketball as her first love.
About the Series
Our Storied Health Film and Media Series is a year-long integrated media experience that illuminates the importance of our collective health and what can be done to enhance it. Through film screenings, campus conversations, and how-to workshops, this series showcases the power of storytelling as a public health intervention. The Series is curated by Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, Director of the Pandemic Center of the Brown School of Public Health, with epidemiologist and documentary filmmaker Dr. Jennifer Galvin ’95.
"Story is a way people come together to solve problems... At a time when there is a critical need to create and provide credible public health information, storytelling – through film, music, art and more – can be a valuable resource." –Dr. Jennifer Galvin '95 (Filmmaker in Residence)
Stay tuned for more information about the upcoming Our Storied Health film screenings this fall!
Past Film Screenings & Panels
ANONYMOUS SISTER
94 minutes / USA / 2023
When a young woman turns to the camera for refuge, she ends up with a firsthand account of what will become the deadliest man-made epidemic in United States history. Thirty years in the making, Anonymous Sister is Emmy Award®-winning director, Jamie Boyle’s chronicle of her family’s collision with the opioid epidemic.
There will be a reception at 5:30 PM and a 6:00 PM screening, followed by a panel and community discussion with Brown Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology Josiah “Jody” Rich, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology Dr. Alex Macmadu, and the film’s director Jamie Boyle.
MOSSVILLE: WHEN GREAT TREES FALL
Mossville, Louisiana: A once-thriving community founded by formerly enslaved and free people of color, and an economically flourishing safe haven for generations of African American families. Today it’s a breeding ground for petrochemical plants and their toxic black clouds. Many residents are forced from their homes, and those that stay suffer from prolonged exposure to contamination and pollution. Amid this chaos and injustice stands one man who refuses to abandon his family’s land - and his community.
Mossville will be followed by a panel featuring Erica Walker, ScD, MS, the RGSS Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health. Dr. Walker runs Community Noise Lab at Brown University, who’s primary aim is to explore the relationship between community noise and health, holistically.
Also joining the panel will be Valerie Tutson, founding member and director of the Rhode Island Black Storytellers and FUNDA FEST: A Celebration of Black Storytelling. She graduated from Brown University with a self-designed major, Storytelling as a Communications Art, and a Masters in Theatre, and received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Rhode Island College. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Pell Award for Artistic Excellence from Trinity Repertory Theatre in Providence.
SHOT IN THE ARM
Scott Hamilton Kennedy (THE GARDEN, FOOD EVOLUTION) had begun investigating the global measles epidemic. It was long before anyone had heard of COVID-19. He was filming with top public health officials–including Tony Fauci–as well as rare interviews with anti-vaccine activists who were persuading parents by the millions to refuse vaccines for their children.
Then COVID-19 happened.
Acting quickly, Kennedy shifted his directorial eye to this once-in-a-century tragedy. Both skeptical and hopeful, SHOT IN THE ARM explores vaccine hesitancy historically and in the context of our modern pandemic. Can we replace cynicism with healthy curiosity and bridge the political divides that make us sick?
SHOT IN THE ARM is a film by Scott Hamilton Kennedy, Executive Produced by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
With panelists Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo (Director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown School of Public Health), Dr. Jennifer Galvin ’95 (Environmental Scientist and Documentary Filmmaker), and journalist Maggie Fox.
Panel Discussion Videos
In the News
Director of ‘Power of the Dream’ discusses collective action amid upcoming elections
“Our Storied Health” Examines Public Health Communications, Anti-Vax Movement
Curator Bios
Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, DrPH
Dr. Nuzzo is a nationally and globally recognized leader on global health security, public health preparedness and response, and health systems resilience. She regularly advises national governments and for-profit and nonprofit organizations on pandemic preparedness and response, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Fox News, Politico, The Hill, and The Boston Globe. She was featured in Debunking Borat, a television series on Amazon Prime Video, and her work was featured on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. She served as COVID Advisor for the Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.
Dr. Jennifer Galvin, ScD, MPH
Dr. Jennifer Galvin drives societal progress by turning resources—both human and financial—into social impact. A trusted advisor to public health, environmental science, and social innovation leaders, she builds bridges across sectors to find the common pulse between research, film, entrepreneurial, and philanthropic networks. She’s known for producing human-centered projects and directing investment in people, places, and programs to elevate global health.
Brown Arts’ IGNITE Series uplifts the spirit of artistic collaboration across Brown, Providence, the Rhode Island region, and beyond. Ignite your creative curiosity through this multi-year series of programs, activations, interventions, and investigations.